Summary of industrial minerals in Manitoba

About 90 per cent of Manitoba's industrial minerals production is for structural materials. Most of these come from the Paleozoic rocks west of the Precarnbrian Shield, or from glacial deposits that are extensive throughout Manitoba. The major raw materials are sand and gravel, and carbonate rocks for crushed stone (and also dolomite for high-magnesia lime, high-calcium limestone for lime and Portland cement, and dolomitic limestone for Tyndall stone). Glacial lake clays are used both in cement and in lightweight aggregate. The Jurassic and Cretaceous strata exposed along or near the Manitoba Escarpment include siliceous, carbonaceous, kaolinitic and illitic shales, all of which are quarried by Red River Brick and Tile in the Pembina Mountain and Ste. Rose areas for use in a brick plant at Lockport. Non-swelling bentonite near the base of the Pembina Member of the Upper Cretaceous Vermilion River Formation is of value as an absorbent clay, and is the only commercial source in production in Canada. It has been quarried by Pembina Mountain Clays Limited since 1940. Gypsum occurs in the Jurassic Amaranth Formation and supplies much of the market for wallboard and Portland cement additive in the Prairie Provinces. Quarries are operated at Gypsumville by Domtar Construction Materials Limited, and north of Amaranth by Westroc Industries Limited. Silica sand from the Ordovician Winnipeg Formation is of glass-grade quality, and about 100,000 tonnes are produced annually by Steel Brothers Canada Limited on Black Island . It is used as a glass sand, as foundry sand, for sand blasting, and as a filter-bed sand .